Apple could have more developers if they simply lowered the $99/year barrier to entry, and let developers run their apps on iOS devices like Android does. So they can't be serious.

They allow universities to have 100 devices per account provisioned for classes for free. This is plenty for students. for those who don't have classes, well, it's unlikely that they'd need to provision a device unless it'd be on the App Store. So I disagree that it would help to lower the barrier of entry, because it's already pretty damn low.